


i would die for you in secret

by rories



Series: sifki month [1]
Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Quarantined Together, and they were ROOMMATES, implied loki/grandmaster - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:48:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26164393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rories/pseuds/rories
Summary: Things Sif expected from this job: a client that was the son of one of the richest men in Norway, appeared to be a spoiled rotten brat, and who would absolutely drive her to madness with his demands and reported arrogant and haughty personality.Things Sif did not expect from this job: getting stuck in quarantine with said client for the foreseeable future.
Relationships: Loki/Sif (Marvel)
Series: sifki month [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1900021
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	i would die for you in secret

**Author's Note:**

> I started this back in April for Sifki Month and then stalled at the end. But I have this wild idea to go back and finish prompts I never got around to, so I figured I’d finish this one. Not super happy with the end, but what can you do.

Things Sif expected from this job: a client that was the son of one of the richest men in Norway, appeared to be a spoiled rotten brat, and who would absolutely drive her to madness with his demands and reported arrogant and haughty personality. 

Things Sif did not expect from this job: getting stuck in quarantine with said client for the foreseeable future.

And yet, that seems to be exactly what is happening. The government had halted all non-essential work and recommended everyone shelter in place. Sif wasn’t sure what that would mean for her job, until Mr. Odinson had called her while she was on the way to his son’s apartment, giving her instructions to stay with his son until everything blew over. 

“Yes, sir, I understand,” Sif says, rubbing the bridge of her nose as she tries not to let the frustration come through in her voice. “I won’t leave his side, sir.” On the other side of the line, Mr. Odinson was letting her know that he’d have groceries and a suitcase of her clothes dropped off that afternoon and if she needed anything else from her apartment, to just let him know. 

“Yes, sir, I will,” Sif answers. “Thank you, sir.” 

Mr. Odinson hangs up without saying goodbye, a trait she’s grown used to since she’d started working for him a little over a year ago. When she’d first started, she had been assigned to building security, an overnight shift that all newbies got stuck with. But after taking down a would-be shooter in the lobby of Asgardia, Inc., Sif had risen through the ranks before finally being assigned to private security for Mr. Odison’s youngest son only a few months ago. 

Which is why she’s here now, standing outside of Loki Odinson’s apartment door and sighing as she locks her phone. She loves her job, really she does, but she’s found in the last few months that Loki is very mercurial and flighty. Her cheeks burn with embarrassment as she remembers the time she’d lost him in a farmer’s market, almost letting him leave without her before she’d caught his tall figure weaving through the parking lot, trying to sneak away. 

She’s determined to never let that happen again. Sif doesn’t knock on the door before entering; she’d already sent a text to Hogun letting him know she was on her way up. The two of them quickly exchange relevant information before Sif follows Hogun to the door and locks it behind him. Loki doesn’t appear until she turns the last lock. 

“Oh, good, it’s you,” he says, spinning on his heel to head back to the kitchen. 

“You were expecting someone else?” she calls out as she hangs her purse and coat on the hooks Loki had installed several weeks ago. She toes off her boots before joining him in the kitchen. 

“I thought perhaps father meant to punish me by sending Volstagg.” 

Sif successfully tamps down the smile from her face, but she doesn’t miss the smirk on Loki’s as he pulls glasses from the cupboard. “I think he means to punish _me_ ,” she answers. 

“Why do you think that?” he asks, filling both glasses with water and handing one to her across the counter. 

“I’m to stay with you during quarantine,” Sif says with a wince. 

Part of her is disappointed that she doesn’t even catch him off guard with her statement. “That won’t be necessary,” he returns. 

“It’s already been decided. Your father is sending Cook with groceries and my stuff this afternoon.” 

“As your boss, I’m relieving you of this duty. You don’t need to stay and I don’t need a babysitter.” 

“You’re not my boss.” 

The two of them stare at each other, neither of them willing to back down, and Sif feels her eyes start to narrow as her temper rises. 

“Fine,” Loki says, turning his back to her. “I’ve made up the guest room,” he continues before wandering into his studio. 

As the door clicks behind him, Sif tries not to think about the fact that he clearly knew in advance she’d be staying and hadn’t put up much of a fight.

*****

The first week of quarantine with Loki Odinson goes about as well as she expected. They spend most of their time trying to keep out of each other’s spaces and take turns making food in the evenings. Breakfast is almost always ready for her when she wakes up, but they take lunch separately. Most days, Sif doesn’t even see Loki until early evening, when he finally comes out of his studio to shower and clean his brushes. 

She spends her days on her laptop, moving from her bed to the desk in her room to the island in the kitchen to the couch. She works on security plans and updating policies, keeping in touch with her team and watching probably an unhealthy amount of Netflix in that first week. She realizes after that first day, after Cook had dropped off a dozen reusable bags of groceries, that Loki needed a better security system, so she’d put in an order for that as well. 

In the evenings, they sit awkwardly on the couch and flip through the channels on the television before Loki gets frustrated and tosses the remote on the couch between them, grabbing his laptop, and heading to this room. Sif sees him one last time before they head to bed for the night, when he comes out to brush his teeth and give her a quiet, soft ‘goodnight.’ 

The fifth day after the quarantine starts, Sif sees Loki in the morning, the first time all week. He’s clutching a cup of tea and pushes one to her across the counter when he spots her. He’s dressed in jogging pants and a plain t-shirt, paint splatter on the bottom of it, and when she glances at his feet, she sees a pair of runners. She’s also surprised to see he still has faint lines on his face from his pillow. 

“You’re up. Good,” he says. 

“I don’t usually see you in the mornings,” she returns, grabbing her mug. It’s coffee instead of tea and made exactly how she likes it. She studiously ignores the way that fact makes her feel. 

“We’re going running.” 

Sif almost chokes on her mouthful of coffee as what he says comes through. “You don’t go running.” 

“No,” Loki says, placing his empty mug in the sink for later. “But you do.” 

Sif will think of this later as the turning point in their relationship. At the time, she ignores again the way the spot behind her breastbone warms and the way her cheeks flush, spreading down her neck. She tries not to think about what it means for him to do this for her, to be so observant of her habits that he knew it had been days since she’d had a good run. To be so aware of her that he would willingly do something he finds uncomfortable because he knew she needed it. 

Their relationship, at least to her, shifts sideways significantly, in a way that she doesn’t quite mind. 

*****

Their second week goes very similarly to their first, though Loki does spend more time out of his studio than he did the first week. Their conversations still feel stilted, but for Sif it’s less because of not knowing what to say and more the feeling that whatever she says is awkward and betrays the feelings that have been growing within her. 

One thing that breaks up the monotony is the arrival of the security system she purchased. She spends the day putting cameras up in the hallway and above the front door before alarming the windows, the whole time Loki sits at the breakfast table watching her. 

“This is highly unnecessary,” he says, popping a grape in his mouth. He’s staring up at her where she stands on a chair and she shoots a smile down at him before refocusing her attention on the wires. She misses the way he drops his gaze to the table and blushes. 

“It’s happening anyway,” Sif returns, pulling tools from her pockets. 

Below her, Loki only hums before he stands and she watches quietly as he wanders back into the kitchen and then down the hall to his studio. She shakes her head fondly at him as he shuts the door to the room, casting one last glance at her before doing so. 

He doesn’t spend as much time in his studio as he had the first week. When she’s finally done with the security system, running diagnostics on all the new programs on her laptop, he finally wanders back out. His face is red from the sun that she knows spills through the large windows and he downs an entire glass of water before snagging his phone off the counter and joining her on the couch. 

The clicking of his phone keyboard echoes her own typing and they finish at relatively the same time, Sif gently closing her laptop and setting it to the side just as Loki tosses his phone to the middle of the couch and reaches for the remote. 

It’s become sort of a routine at this point, to sit and find something neither of them hates. They don’t have much in common by way of television. Sif enjoys things with action and explosions and saving the day with the occasional romantic comedy or period piece thrown in. Loki tends to stray more towards documentaries and fantasy but he has sat through some of Sif’s louder shows. 

The one thing they can agree on, however, is cooking shows. Great British Bake Off, Nailed It, Chopped, Master Chef, they’ll watch all of them, even if they’ve seen them before. Loki doesn’t even ask anymore as he flips through the choices and lands on a random episode of GBBO and leans back against the couch. Next to him, Sif also leans back, propping her socked feet up on the coffee table. 

They’re about halfway through the episode when something occurs to Sif. “You’re probably dying not being able to go to the club, huh?” she asks, rolling her head to look at him. 

It’s the only reason she sees the storm come over his features and he jerks to look at her. “Excuse me?” he asks, his voice full of ice. 

Sif immediately knows she’s messed up, but she just can’t help continuing. “I just mean, you used to go clubbing all the time. It was, like, all you did. You must miss it. Being cooped up all the time now.” 

She remembers when she first applied to Asgardia, Inc., back when she was fresh out of the academy and already disenchanted with law enforcement. She hadn’t known much about the Odinsons, other than the head of the family, Odin Allfather, had inherited the business from his father and had turned it into the prosperous business it is today. His wife, Frigga, had been - and continues to be - a highly successful chemist, and his oldest son, Thor, was in line to inherit the business after Odin. 

Loki on the other hand, when Sif had researched the company and the Asgardia family, was a bit of a black sheep. He’d constantly been in the gossip pages and in terribly framed paparazzi photos on the front of entertainment magazines. He’d famously been spotted with The Grandmaster, a well-known and extremely shady owner of several night clubs, and rumors about their relationship had flooded gossip sites for weeks. 

Sif also remembers that Loki had been arrested in a spectacular fashion, the press tearing into the “disgraceful second son” for weeks, pictures popping up for days after of a too thin, stringy haired Loki, propped up by two scowling officers. Everything had been swiftly swept under the rug and Loki had been mysteriously out of the spotlight for three months, reappearing just as Sif had started at Asgardia, Inc. 

She’d been so busy learning the ropes and then the lobby incident had happened, she hadn’t been paying enough attention to the personal lives of her employers, so she had just assumed Loki had gone back to his previous life. 

Right now she’s wishing she _had_ paid a little more attention. 

Loki’s body is stiff as he stands and she can see from where she’s frozen to the couch that the back of his neck is red and his hands have clenched into fists. 

“Loki,” she starts apologetically. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just thought -” 

“I know what everyone thinks,” Loki says coldly. “I am well aware of what people say about me. Believe me when I say, I carry that burden with me every day.” His gaze is somewhere on the wall in front of him, just to the left of a brightly colored abstract painting. 

“I’m sorry,” Sif starts again, cutting herself off when Loki makes a pained noise. 

“Two hundred and forty five days as of today,” Loki continues, still not moving his gaze from the spot on the wall. “I haven’t had a drink, haven’t taken a single pill, in eight months. All I’ve had is my studio,” he says before finally turning to look at her. “And you.” 

Her heart does this weird double thump as their eyes meet and then it aches at the look on his face. She knows that their relationship has always been different, more than just bodyguard and client. If she really thinks about it, she’s spent more time with him in the last few months than anyone else. They go to dinner together, which she knows he doesn’t do with other members of his security detail. He asks for her opinion on things and trusts her to pick up his art supplies instead of Fandral or Volstagg. They talk more than the others too and Sif is confident in saying that she knows more about him than the rest of her team. 

But apparently she’d missed this. Sif swallows hard as he stares down at her before sighing and turning to walk away. She doesn’t even think about it, doesn’t hesitate, she just reaches out and grabs his wrist. It’s skinny under her palm and as she stands, she threads her fingers through his long, slender ones. She thinks about his fingers wrapped around a mug, tapping against his thigh, twirling a paintbrush. 

“Loki,” she says quietly, tugging against his hand as she stands. “I’m sorry.” She presses herself against his side and presses her head to his shoulder, a facsimile of a hug she knows she doesn’t deserve. “I’m sorry,” she says again. She moves slowly, placing herself in front of him and sliding her hands over his shoulders. “I’m sorry.” 

Against her, she feels him relax just the slightest and then her heart flips again when his hands come up to rest against her waist. “You’re right,” she whispers, her grasp on his tightening, pulling him ever closer. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’ve seen the steps you’ve taken and I’m proud of you. I’m sorry.” 

She feels his body sway into hers, gathering her closer as he lets his head fall to her shoulder. They stand like that for a long moment, in the growing darkness of the living room, before Loki finally takes a deep breath and steps back, his fingers dragging along her hips. 

“I apologize for snapping at you,” he says, the remnants of a blush still staining his cheeks. 

“I should be the one apologizing,” Sif responds. “I’m part of your security team, I should have noticed you haven’t been out in months.” 

Loki hums, staring at his hands awkwardly before her. “We should get some sleep,” he says, bending to pick up his phone from the couch. “I’ll see you in the morning.” He leans forward and Sif’s heart stutters in her chest as she freezes in place. His lips against her cheek are soft and warm and her eyes flutter closed as his breath washes across her skin. 

When she reopens her eyes, he is gone, and she hears his bedroom door close down the hall, leaving her in the living room trying to catch her breath and shake off the lingering guilt and embarrassment. 

*****

The next few days of quarantine are filled with awkward silences and the two of them attempting to stay out of each other’s way. Sif feels like she’s going to lose it after three days of avoidance when Loki slumps onto the couch at the end of the day and flips on GBBO. They’d eaten way too much ramen for dinner and had chit chatted about inane things for most of it. 

They make quiet comments during a few episodes, long after the sun had gone down, until it was later than Sif thought it was. She glances at the clock and does a double take at the time and turns to Loki to point out how late it is. Her voice gets stuck in her throat when she sees him, however. His head is propped up on one hand, elbow perched on the arm of the couch, and he looks like he’s engrossed in the show. 

But when she looks closer, she can see the line of his eyelashes resting against his cheek, skin reflecting the flashing colors from the television, casting his angles in sharp relief. He looks peaceful, face slack in sleep and without the stresses she’s realized he carries every day. Sif moves quietly to flip the television off and snags a blanket off a nearby chair. Her movements are silent as she drapes it over his form, making sure to cover as much of him as possible. 

She can’t help but stare at him for a moment as she kneels in front of him. Between one blink and the next, however, she watches as his eyelids flutter open and then she’s frozen by his gaze. “Sorry,” she whispers into the space between them and leans back to move away. 

He stops her with a hand on her wrist, his eyes still full of sleep and she finds him so, so endearing in that moment. That must be why she moves forward when he tugs slightly on her hand, until she’s back into his space, hovering over him. He blinks slowly at her, like he doesn’t want to close his eyes for fear of her disappearing and the corner of his mouth quirks up in a half grin just before he kisses her. 

Loki’s mouth is warm against hers, soft and pliant and giving as she melts into him. The hand that had been propping up his head rests on her cheek, thumb stroking her cheekbone as he deepens the kiss. Her own hands create a cage around him as she slots herself onto his lap, taking up one whole corner of the couch. 

She kisses him back for a long moment, sinking into his space as he wraps one arm around her waist and she feels him sigh against her mouth as he finally pulls away. They rest their foreheads together, sharing the quiet space between them and the silence settles over them. 

She feels him relax against the cushions, bringing his arms up against her shoulder blades to push her closer and she can’t deny him the closeness. Sif isn’t sure how much longer the quarantine is going to last or what their plans are for the future or even tomorrow really. All she knows is the here and now, Loki’s warm breath against her hair, and the feeling of complete happiness that overtakes her as she settles against his chest and presses a kiss right over his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> why are all my titles so dramatic lol? anyway peace is the perfect song for them


End file.
